


The Strain

by solo (gay_wristwatch)



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11707086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_wristwatch/pseuds/solo
Summary: A look into how Nicole might cope with Waverly's reaction to her decision regarding the results.





	The Strain

Nicole hands are aching, in that radiating pulsing way when she feels like a fuck-up and it hurts. Wynonna’s words keep coming back to her; they seem almost like an oracle's warning now.

She doesn’t want to move, so she just lets it hurt. Her long form is prone on the couch in the quiet; almost every light is off. Even the bottles of her favorite beer she’d brought out in hopes of a modicum of comfort stand forgotten on the coffee table, waiting in little pools of condensation.

Nicole is a cop. She didn't lie, especially not to Waverly. But somehow, the woman was so under her skin she found her passion leading her into questionable territory. She winces again at what she'd said in the barn when they’d gotten Waverly back. It had been hypothetical. Mostly.

But she found she really would do anything to keep Waverly from hurting. So when she'd seen the packet at the station, opened it without thinking, and scrambled to put it away after another officer approached her to look through the stack of mail, hiding it until the right time seemed like the only option. Waverly might break upon seeing the results and she’d been through so, so much lately. Too much. Nicole felt she couldn’t just turn Waverly’s world upside down so suddenly; she’d act like a bit of a buffer for now. A bit of guilt and malaise had settled in her gut as she remained just a little too conscious of what she had hidden in her bag with Waverly not five feet away the whole day. The small, evasive, nervous lies made it worse, but she'd resolved to tell Waverly she had the results as soon as they could have real privacy. That's what she'd wanted right? She'd been horrifically suspicious with it, but Nicole meant it: _Of course it matters._

Because Waverly matters. She matters so much.

Nicole let her phone drop from her arm hanging off the couch. It was useless for all intents and purposes anyway. Waverly hadn't responded to anything she’d sent, and Nicole knew she most likely wouldn’t tonight. She felt the anxiety in her gut redouble when that thought came back: _what if she never does?_

She'd fallen so hard for Waverly, and their surreal surroundings only seemed to make her feelings more intense than any other relationship she'd had before. Everyone in their little squad had nearly died several times over _so far_. Losing Waverly in any sense was her worst nightmare.

The emotion has Nicole finally reaching for the beer she’d opened and bringing it to her lips fast, eyes closed. Droplets of condensation and some of her barely-below-room-temperature drink land on her shirt and neck but she hardly registers them. Any attempts to stop replaying the scene in her head are futile; she almost has to. Something about the pain almost felt welcome.

_“This is your purse,”_

_Nicole’s stomach drops as her eyes land on what Waverly’s just discovered. Her mind races to catch up, no, race ahead of Waverly’s(a lost cause), so she can provide some kind of explanation. This was not supposed to happen._

_Waverly meets her gaze, eyes full of questions, searching Nicole's for an answer that doesn’t hurt._

_"You said it hadn't arrived yet."_

_The rising lump in Nicole's throat coupled with the pounding in her ears keep her frozen. Seconds tick by without a word from her._

_"D-did you open it?" Nicole flexes her clammy hands and fumbles for a response even harder–that was the question she didn't know how to handle earlier that day in the first place._

_"Why won't you tell me?" The way she lowers her head with that quaking voice finally spurs Nicole's mouth into action, to say something, anything to help._

_"Because I love you." Even with her brain basically broken right now, she knows it was the wrong thing to say even before Waverly starts to scramble to her feet. Away from Nicole._

_"Are you serious right now?"_ Yes _. Nicole forces her voice to stay somewhat even after Waverly's voice breaks._

_"Because I was trying to protect you,"_

_"Or control me." The anger and twinge of what looks like disgust on Waverly's face make it hard to respond immediately._

_"Once you look you can't unsee the result."_

_Everything on Waverly's face gives way to pain. "I don't need you to make decisions for me." In the back of her mind, Nicole knows that look is going to be stuck in her memory for a while. She can almost see Waverly's walls materializing as she waits until she's done._

_"Okay?"_

_"I'm not a child." Knowing that Waverly's childhood was mottled with pain makes the comparison hit hard. She's shaking her head, desperate for Waverly to know that's not what she meant. Waverly is her own beautiful, strong person. It's probably a good thing she's too choked up after that barrage to reply immediately with some shit Waverly doesn't want to hear._

_"And from the look on your face I'm not an Earp either," Waverly shoves the words out in a rush as she starts to leave. Nicole is dumbfounded at how quickly everything went wrong._

_"Waverly! Wait." She knows it's useless but she has to try to not suffer the image of Waverly practically running away from her. Right after the words leave her mouth she hears how they sound almost like an order, and then she hears Waverly snap back with her own._

_"Don't follow me.”_

_Nicole has no idea what Rosita says to her as she turns away and fails to blink her tears back._

There are some criticisms that just stick with you. Nicole was young but even she could see some of the patterns in her life. Wynonna hadn’t been the first to give her shit, good-natured or no, about her moral tenacity. She liked to think she tried her hardest to make things right(and keep them that way), that her impulses helped her be good police and a strong person. But sometimes without noticing she got a bit carried away, and people didn’t appreciate her choices, no matter how well-intentioned she might have been.

This pain was familiar yet different; no-one before had been what Waverly is to her now. Nicole could feel her insecurity turn in on itself and smolder in her mind as frustration. Sitting up quickly and slamming the bottle on the floor on her way off the couch, she gives in to the thrum of negative energy urging her to do _something_.

It’s late now, but there’s no way she can sleep with her mind like this.

After changing into shorts and a muscle tank top, Nicole sets up her pull-up bar on her bedroom door. She reaches up and looks ahead at the same time, then turns to face the hall instead of staring at her bed through the open door. She gets a comfortable grip before folding her long legs back to fall into a dead hang.

In high school, between the storm that surrounded her coming out and her talent on the basketball team, she found that working out helped when all she could feel was a raging tumult inside.

Only a little, really. But it helped.

The concentration on form and physical stress and the tension in her burning muscles all pulled her mind away from whatever she was torturing herself by dwelling on.

Inhale. Draw back scapulae. Keep elbows in. _Pull._

One.

Exhale and control descent.

For the second time today, her blood set to pounding in her ears and she was tense and breathless and her hands were sweating against the bar.

**Author's Note:**

> hmm so a lot of this is based on how i feel and deal with being upset, especially when i feel like i messed up. hope it works here. hit me with a comment to tell me what you think!


End file.
